


here is someone like me

by 8sword



Category: Captain America (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Team Free Dorito
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's never liked New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here is someone like me

**Author's Note:**

> This one is cheating, since a nearly-complete version of it was already posted on tumblr forever ago. NOW WITH TWELVE PERCENT MORE UST. You have orange_8_hands to blame for this, probably. (Partial happy belated birthday, orange?)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read these inconceivable pairings.

Dean's never liked New York. They've had two cases there that he can remember, and maybe another when he was too young to actually know where they were, just has this memory of holding onto a handful of his dad's flannel tight with one hand and holding onto a shiny, fingerprint-smudged pole in a subway with the other. Everything was crowded then, people jammed up against him and him being terrified that he would lose Dad, that Dad would get off through one of those sets of sliding doors and they would close behind him before Dean could squeeze out after him.

It's probably not fair to dislike a whole state just based on a city in it, but Dean's resentful of being sent to Rochester regardless. He grimaces down at the coordinates on his phone and throws it into the passenger seat and glares out the windshield as he switches lanes to head for I-86.

Two days later finds him in a house. Not a bad house, as things go, not as in bad of repair as a lot of houses haunted by poltergeists that he's seen; the staircases inside all redone in dark wood and laid with carpet that his boots sank deep into when he headed upstairs to start placing hoodoo bags, but new wood packs a hell of a lot harder a punch than the old rotting kind, and he reels backward, feels himself hit the wall as if from a far distance. Feels himself slide down it. Hears something else crack, and fall.

Then pain.

Not sure what happens after that. Just, eventually, coughing and spluttering and fire, fire in his leg. A hand suddenly on his shoulder.

He blinks up blearily, feeling blood warm and sticky on his upper lip. Tacky under his nose. "Dad?" he tries to say, and tries to focus, to see his dad's face as the hand squeezes his shoulder like a confirmation. But somebody's standing in front of John, blocking him from view, some middle-aged guy in a Blues Brothers suit who turns to two, then back into one.

Then Dean's nearly throwing up, guts pitching inside him, as someone heaves the beam of wood off his leg. Pain _explodes_.

Hands catch him under the arms as he topples forward. "Hang on there, son," a voice, and then Blues Brother is bobbing behind Dean as he's slung over someone's shoulder in a fireman's carry.

He does throw up then, black spots swarming behind his eyes. He thinks he's trying to say something, too, through the hot sour chunks, as he coughs and splutters them out, eyes just as hot and stinging. But someone's screaming too loudly for him to be heard, and the screams are in time to the splintering, searing pains in his leg as it bounces, and all he has time to think is how weird that is before he slides into unconsciousness.

 

He comes to in a hospital room. The monitors go off at once from the way his pulse spikes when he realizes where he is and has the usual _shit shit **fuck**_ reaction of being in a hospital with several different fake IDs on him--except not on him anymore, because he's in a hospital gown and nothing else.

The door opens Dean's going to throw up, again, and his heart literally pitches itself against his chest when he sees that the man coming inside is in a G-man suit.

"Dean." The fed's voice is gentle. "You don't have to worry. No one here's planning to arrest you."

That doesn't exactly calm Dean down, considering he didn't have anything on him that should have given this guy his name. But he clenches his fists in the thin sheet, on either side of the fucking catheter in his dick, and as the guy shuts the door behind him and takes a single step closer to sit down in the chair down by the foot of the bed, memory filters into him, slow like the orange glow creeping up the end of a Marlboro. He remembers this guy's face in front of him, and a hand against the side of his neck, holding his lolling head upright, and--

The blood rushes from his face.

The guy whose ass he threw up on was Captain America.

He looks at the fed. The fed smiles back, like he knows what Dean has just realized, and introduces himself. "I'm Agent Coulson."

"Hey," Dean manages. God, he can still taste the vomit in his mouth.

 Coulson sits down in one of the two chairs on either side of the bed. "I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here."

Dean actually laughs at this. "I've got a pretty good idea."

Coulson smiles again. "Certain parties have been keeping, shall we say--an eye on your family's activities for some time."

Dean holds his breath. He manages to keep his heart rate under control, but the telemetry goes off anyways, registering that he's not inhaling or exhaling. He lets it out in a huff as Coulson looks over at the monitor, still with that small smile like he's amused by all of this.

"I noticed that you've been doing a lot of cases on your own lately," he continues once a nurse in blue scrubs has come in to deactivate the alarm and then slipped out of the room again. "And I thought maybe this was a good time to approach you."

Dean narrows his eyes at him.

"I work for an organization called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division." Coulson slides a small white business card across the bed to him. "We could use an individual with your skill set."

Dean snorts. There's a big eagle-shaped logo on the card, which he doesn't bother picking it up. "You're gonna have to tell me what skill set you're talking about," he says. "Last I heard, only skills I had were being a good lay and knowing how to hold my liquor."

"That's interesting," Coulson says. "Maybe I'm biased, but I'd place ghost-hunting above imbibtion any day."

Dean stares at him. Coulson stares back, still smiling.

The silence stretches and stretches. Finally Coulson stands up. "It's probably not fair of me to spring this on you without giving you some time to think about it." He bends to retrieve a black briefcase from beside the chair. "While you're thinking. I'd be grateful if you could take a look at any of the cases on this tablet." He pulls out the smallest laptop computer Dean's ever seen and places it gently on the wheeled bedside table next to Dean's bed. "I'll be back, Dean." He pats Dean's uncasted leg once and exits the room.

Dean stares at the door as it falls shut behind him. Then he looks around. He's in a private room, in a pretty modern-looking hospital, fancy wood paneling on the walls and fake granite for the sink in the corner. There's a small window to his left with a nearly transparent shade pulled down over to it to show the outline of building and a sky that's nearly dark; on his right, the wall with the door and several more windows, all of these with drawn blinds. The room is nearly sound-proofed; he can barely hear passing voices and the movement of hospital machinery outside.

He looks down at himself. Ignoring the catheter in his dick and taking in the bandages over his left hand, the cast immobilizing his left leg. He's been here a while, then, and he lifts his fingers to his head, feeling more gauze there. He's on some kind of pain medication; if he had to give it a guess based on the level of fuzziness it's probably morphine and not just Tylenol 3.

His cell phone is on the table next to the mini-computer. Dean picks it up, and it's almost fully-charged: 98%. His wallpaper is unchanged, the picture of a dick he found drawn in a sticky truck stop menu a few weeks back, and there are no missed messages or calls. He checks his call log again anyway, scrolling through the history, but the last call is the one he placed out to his dad after he got the coordinates; unanswered. According to the date on his phone, that was ten days ago, and Dean turns his head against his pillow as his stomach twists. Just the pain meds, probably; he gets queasy on them sometimes, and he stays still and tries to think of nothing until it goes away. But it doesn't, and he presses his phone harder against his stomach and then, with a huff of effort, shoves himself further upright.

The tablet comes awake when the side of his thumb hits the screen. PASSWORD, it prompts, and Dean thinks for a minute before typing in his own birthday. The screen, unbelievably bright, fades into a collection of files separated by dates.

He opens one at random-- **07_1992** \--and starts to read.

 

(He tells himself it's because he owes it to Coulson for getting him out of that wreck of a house.

He tells himself it's because if he doesn't, as nicely as the request was phrased, they'll have him in handcuffs so fast he won't have a chance at breaking out without his dad needing to come bust out.

He _knows_ , in some pathetic desperate part of himself, that it's really because he wants so badly to be needed by somebody.)

 

He's dragging his finger slowly across the touch-activated screen of the tablet, studying the pictures of Stars of Solomon, when there's a knock on his door.

He looks up just in time to see a guy in a blue hoodie sliding into the room.

His hand goes automatically to the pillow there's not a gun under. The damn heart monitor gives him away again, beeping a warning that his pulse is jumping again.

The hooded guy looks up from easing the door shut. His blue eyes land on Dean's. Behind black glasses, they look startled. "You're up."

Dean stares.

He wanders a step closer, hands up as though to show _no weapons._ "How're you feeling?"

"You're Captain America."

The captain blinks back at him for a minute. Then he glances behind him and pulls all the way shut the blinds that look out onto the hospital hallway. He pulls down his hood, revealing gelled blond hair, and smiles sheepishly. "Sorry."

Dean must just stare some more, because the captain clears his throat. "Sorry about your leg."

"Yeah," Dean says. "Um." He suddenly, stupidly, pictures his mom in his head, like she was when he was young enough to be sitting in her lap watching the Captain America and Bucky cartoon that used to play on TV in the afternoons. "You wanna--have a seat?"

"Thank you," Captain America says, but doesn't move to sit in either of the chairs next to Dean's bed. He pushes his glasses further up his nose. "I wish I could, but--"

"Oh," Dean says, too immediate, and winces at his own over-eager tone. "No, no, I get it. You're busy, dude--I mean, sir--Captain--"

He breaks off, ears aflame. Captain America, though, is smiling. There's a dent in his cheek from it, under the black-framed glasses.

"Do you need anything?" he says. "I know S.H.I.E.L.D. can be…intimidating. Is there anything I can get you?"

Dean shakes his head quickly. His head immediately begins to pound.

"Easy, soldier." The captain's voice is suddenly quieter and closer at the same time. "You've got a hell of a concussion."

"Yeah," Dean whispers. Everything seems too loud suddenly. Too much. "I don't need anything, thanks."

"You sure?" Captain America looks unconvinced. "I know it's not easy being laid up."

Dean musters the energy to lift Coulson's tablet and shake it slightly. "I'm good. I got homework."

The captain frowns. He comes closer, and Dean didn't realize he was holding his breath until it all punches out of him when the captain takes the tablet from his hands.

"No reading when you've got a concussion," he says, and there's a furrow between his eyebrows, above his very blue eyes. He sets it on the bedside table with one hand and sets the other on Dean's ankle, a warm weight.

"Sleep." The voice is stern, but the squeeze he gives Dean's ankle is gentle.

Dean swallows, says, "Yes, sir." Doesn't return the small, careful smile the captain gives him as he pulls his hood back over his head and slips back out of the door, leaving the blinds shut behind him.

Just tilts his head back, on the pillow, and slowly releases his breath.

 

Coulson comes back more than a few times in the next week, comes every day, actually, even though for the first few days, Dean doesn't have any more information to give him. He's been forbidden from touching the tablet with its occult cases by a blank-faced, black-suited agent who calls it "Cap's orders" and hides it until the neurologist clears Dean for minimal cognitive exertion. (It would have Sammy laughing his brains out to hear that, and Dean tries not to think about that.)

A lot of the times they don't actually talk much: Coulson just sits in the chair beside Dean's bed and does work on his own fun-sized computer. On the wheeled tray-table on the other side of Dean's bed, his belongings sit neatly folded, his battered cell phone on top of his ruined jeans, and it doesn't ring once the whole time he's there.

(He tries not to think about that, either.)

He checks out AMA once he can finally get around on a pair of crutches. Coulson gives him another business card, a different one this time, with his phone number on it, and a phone almost as slender and high-tech as the mini-computer-tablet thing. He won't take it back no matter how many times Dean tells him he's not gonna use it.

"In case we need you," he says.

Dean snorts,  shifting his crutches so they don't dig into his armpits as badly. "Sure."

"We'd have you if you'd have us," Coulson says in that earnest way he has that's really fucking annoying and also intimidating. Dean scuffs the floor tile with his boots, which he'd required the help of a nurse to get laced up. She gave him meaningful looks the whole time, like _see why you shouldn't be leaving?_

He grimaces at himself. "Yeah. Well." He adjusts again, starts limping away. "Thanks, Coulson."

He's a few awkward, half-lurched steps away when Coulson says, "Dean."

He pauses, bracing himself on his good foot. Looks back.

"You can't tell anyone about this." Coulson doesn't look regretful, but something about his voice is. "You understand."

Dean gives him a grin. It tastes like the oral antibiotics they switched him to, metallic and bitter. "Who's there to tell?"

 

Sometimes, on the really lonely nights, he turns the phone over in his hands. Thinks of how to someone he'd been worth trying to hold onto.

_I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you._

_The truth is they don't need you. Not like you need them._

He sits in that cabin, next to Sam's bloating body, and presses his thumb against the screen until it cracks.

 

After Hell.

All his memories mixed up, for a while. Anything that isn't stapled down by Sam or Bobby takes time to trickle back into its place. It takes brushing up against them in the dark to remember they were there.

He's digging in the glove box for quarters to vacuum the grave dirt from Baby's floorboards. His silver ring clinks against plastic, and he pulls the phone out.

He presses the button on the side with his thumb. The cracked screen blooms silently to colored life. The wallpaper is, and has always been, the nondescript dichromatic logo of a shield.

He remembers _I can throw you back in_ and grips it tight.

 

Months later. Another motel room, another fight with Sam. His brother different, samanddean Sam and Dean, not in step anymore, maybe ever weren't in step, maybe always like this and Dean too stupid to realize. Sam's bag on the bed, Sam's bed empty, Sam out with Ruby, and Dean alone in the dark staring into it when That Phone buzzes.

ALL SHIELD PERSONNEL

DETAIN CAPTAIN AMERICA ON SIGHT

IMPLICATED IN THE DIRECTOR'S DEATH

Dean sits up. Dean turns on the TV. And sees--

 

Shapeshifter is his first thought. He grabs his duffel, leaves two guns and a machete for Sammy, roars off in the Impala with the rest. Calls Bobby, asks him to look into possible shifter lairs in D.C., no, Bobby, Sam's not with me, no, Bobby, I don't care what that kid does--please, Bobby, please will you just _do_ it.

Gotta be something supernatural. Gotta be something unnatural, to make anyone think the big kind man who had laid his warm hand on Dean's foot could be anything but good.

He drives through the night to the capital. A haze of caffeine and dark roads, grainy headlights. No calls from Sam; too many from Bobby.

Boy, you know what's happenin' in D.C. right now? Turn on a damn TV--

You better not be tearin' your fool ass off tryin' to get there

What the hell's so important you need to get your damn head blown off?!

"It's an angel thing. It's a seal," Dean lies lies lies because for all of Castiel's talk about God having a mission for him there hasn't been anything since Anna. He's nearly died how many times and there hasn't been any attempt to save him, and no attempt to stop him, and Bobby heaves out a gusty sigh and finds him three locations a shifter might hole up, and promises to look for more.

 

The second one is a bank. Dean pulls up around the block from it, digging through the trunk for all the silver he can while keeping his eyes on the bank's dark, empty facade. It seems long ago and yet just yesterday, that dark bank in Milwaukee, Ronald's sightless eyes, the puddles of skin and airless dark spaces. It seems like yesterday and it seems like Hell, blood and terror and a man telling him things about his dad--

Snapping out of it. Squeezing his hand around the Taurus inside his jacket. You're here. You're here. You're not there.

A service entrance in the back. He jimmies it open. Is quiet, listening. Hearing distant low voices and the sounds of metal.

He creeps down. Down, down, past the cool marble lighting of the empty bank into dimness, and then light that's the yellow of greasy bones.

A vault. A room of safety deposit boxes, bristling with men in black carrying sub-automatics and more hardware strapped across their chests, and amid them, people in white lab coats.

Through the clatter of footsteps and quiet whir of computers: "But I knew him."

More voices. Low. Angry. Skin hitting skin. Footsteps, and Dean flattens himself against the wall outside the room, the Taurus' safety pulled back and his finger careful atop the trigger.

There is screaming.

People stride past his hiding spot, out the door. He catches a glimpse of gray wool suit, a gleaming watch, more armed men flanking him on either side. Their footsteps are unhurried up the stairs that Dean came down, a heavy door thudding shut behind them and ending the sound of their boots and one pair of wingtips on the marble floor. The screaming, though. That keeps going.

Dean counts to fifteen. Then he slides out of the nook in the wall, whirls around the open doorway, and begins to shoot.

Deafening gunfire joins the screaming. Shouted orders on top of that. Dean's world narrows down to heat and old gleaming brass and that yellow light like bared bones. Men shooting at him, and his teeth bared, and everything so dim, so slow, like he's seeing it in the flickering light of Hell.

(He doesn't know it but he's moving with a speed that isn't human. He doesn't know it, but if he looked at his reflections in the stainless steel equipment the eyes that looked back would burn black.)

When it's done. When it's done, he's standing in front of the man who was screaming.

 

He's quiet now. Lips slack around the mouth guard, eyes dazed and feverish. Blood in a thin red flow from the side of his mouth down the trembling cords of his neck, onto his sweaty frantically heaving chest.

Dean looks at him. The man looks back, his eyes struggling to focus, and there is something rising up in Dean, something swelling and expanding. An excitement, a fear. Four years old again and being introduced to the boy just his age who moved in down the street. Staring and thinking _here is someone like me._

He steps to the console beside the chair where metal and thick straps keep the man's arms pinned, his thighs and ankles. The shifting colors of the MRI on the computer screen are complex, but the controls are not, and in twenty seconds, the arm restraints are whirring and pulling back, and the metal on either side of the man's head follows suit.

His eyelids fall shut. For a long minute, they stay closed, and Dean watches the tiny motions, the REM-like jerks behind the thin veined lids like he's trying to twitch free.

Then he opens them, and they slide impassively across the walls. Red-veined and blank. They slide across the blood spatter on the walls, the white coats on the floor with their slowly spreading stains.

Dean lifts his hand.

The man flinches.

Dean pulls the black mouth guard from between clenched teeth that go, abruptly, slack. He tosses it onto the floor, watching it skid into one of the puddles of blood spreading from black-suited guard's abdomen. He goes over to the body and tugs its rifle free of the holster.

The man takes it when Dean offers it to him. His hand smoothes over the barrel, automatic, robotic, and he stands from the chair.

Dean moves out of his way. He flanks his right side as he starts slowly, unhurriedly, up the stairs.

A thrill is travelling through him. Toward him. Still far away, but he can sense it on the horizon, a wave building. Bigger, bigger, bigger.

Two more guards in black wait upstairs in the marble-floored bank. Dean sees them over the man's shoulder and immediately shouts a warning, dropping to the floor behind a teller counter.

But the man is already in a crouch behind the counter, rifle braced against his shoulder. He lifts his head to sight along the barrel of the weapon, pale eyes narrowing, and shock judders through Dean like the kickback of a rifle. The jut of that jaw. The still, unwavering line of the throat. A documentary he watched over and over in motel rooms where the only thing on cable suitable for Sammy to watch was old history shows.

_Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers--_

The wave crashing. Dissipating long before it ever reached him. He digs his hands into sand and screams as the water drags it away from him.

 

Very quickly there is no more return fire from the other side of the bank. Captain America's long-lost partner uncoils to his feet, knee digging briefly into Dean's gut.

Dean rolls to his feet, too. Wraps all the thorny hurt inside him up in thick cloth, a violent fist swaddled like a baby. He slashes out with the silver knife in his wrist sheath.

Barnes catches him before the knife hits skin. Has Dean's arm twisted behind his back before Dean even registers the movement. The muscles of his arm convulse, trying to hold on, but the knife clatters to the floor.

"What did you do?" Dean pants out. Adam's gray bloodless face in that crypt, his wide staring eyes. The ghoul that ate him, the ghoul that slid his face over its fucking skull. "Did you eat him? Did you fucking eat Bucky Barnes?"

The man goes still. He extends his leg, dragging Dean's knife to him with a foot without releasing his arm. He looks down at it.

 

It's a dull knife. Not good for much aside from identifying a shifter, definitely not one Dean would use in a knife fight. Barnes, or the thing that looks like him, has a disapproving cast to his face like he knows it, and he touches it curiously to the meat of his forearm while he still holds Dean pinned. Dean twists to see red blood seep to the surface of the cut.

Barnes releases him. Dean stumbles, catching himself on a teller desk, and spins.

Barnes tosses him the knife. Dean catches it automatically.

"That's what he called me."

The voice is low. The voice is the one that said, _but I knew him._

Dean says, "Fuck."

 

He ends up pulling out one of his phones, one that can access internet. He finds a picture of Captain America and holds it out to Barnes. "This him? The guy who called you that?"

Barnes looks at it. After a long moment, he nods.

Dean pockets the phone. “I’m looking for him, too.”

Barnes seems to take this in. But he doesn’t move.

Dean bends to strip one of the newly dead guys of his semi-automatic. Grabs his Kevlar vest, too, after another minute of consideration.

"To kill him?" Barnes’ voice is rusty.

"No," Dean says without looking up from fastening the vest. He sounds as tired as he feels. "To protect him."

He looks up, then. Meets Barnes’ eyes.

Barnes moves. He strips the Kevlar vest from the other guard, efficient, dispassionate movements, and pulls it on over himself.

 

They arrive in time for the tail end of Captain America's intercom broadcast. Barnes' gait falters when they get in earshot of it, his heavy boot scuffing on the tarmac of the landing strip. Gunfire rings out ahead of them, though, and the expression on his face melts into nothing. Just a straight-ahead stare as he begins to gun down Hydra men, hair flying back from and in front of his expressionless face. Dean covers him from behind, because Barnes doesn't seem to have any thought of protecting his right flank, or his left, or his back or his front. Any part of him. Dean can feel himself spiraling into the same numb place and tries to remember to check his six, his nine, his three. To remember that it's bad if he gets hit.

(Maybe it is. But maybe--)

Barnes slings himself into a fighter craft. Its engines are already whining, pulling the starboard end up from the tarmac. It stays like that, lopsided, hovering, until Dean realizes why he’s waiting.

"No," he says, but he picks off the  black-masked guy aiming his gun at the portside rotors and breaks into a jog. Swings up into the other open side of the fighter, hand clenching around a bar running along the top none too soon, as the craft gives a sharp whine and shoots up into the air.

Dean shouts, legs flying out to brace his feet against the bulkhead as gravity grabs his bones and tries to yank him out of the open side of the fighter. " _Fuck_!"

One of his handguns slides out of his waistband and plummets down toward the helipad, far below.

Barnes ignores his shriek, or doesn’t hear him over the roar of the wind and the engines; his eyes are intent on the helicarrier rapidly looming up above them. Dean sees a gleam of something, blonde hair amid the grays and blues of girders and bulkhead.

They juke sharply. And swoop in for a landing.

 

A big blur of pain and panic after that. Trying to breathe through the panic. Trying to dig himself out of the twisted metal and get a gun out in time to shoot before being shot.

Barnes on the catwalk. Movement in front of him--the captain.

A stinging whistle of pain along his ear. He rolls over just in time to avoid another bullet; takes aim at the dark-suited man and sees the spray of blood even as he's twisting back around to find Barnes and the Captain with his eyes again.

He can’t hear the Captain’s voice when he shouts Barnes’ name. Can only see his mouth moving, the shocked  _Bucky!_ , because his own ear drums are already ruptured from the unequalized pressure, cold air rushing in around him. Another spray of bullets hits the bulkhead around him; he rolls away, tearing his eyes from Cap and brings his left arm up to stabilize his busted one, sighting along the barrel of his Taurus. Feels the familiar kick as the bullet leaves it, watches the light in the man’s eyes go out and the chip he’d taken from Cap slide out of his hand.

Then Dean’s sliding, too, back, down, and he feels himself tip backward. Over.

Heart scrambling against its ribs like it’s reaching for a handhold. Like it’s trying to grab onto something. Through the ringing silence in his ears he thinks he can hear the howls of hounds growing closer.

He squeezes his eyes shut.

He doesn’t want to see no one looking back as he falls.

 

\- - -

 

Black screen. Quietly beeping monitors. The slow fade-in of a hospital room, white walls, blue sheets. Captain America sitting there with his hands clasped, knuckles pressed to his mouth. His eyes very blue beneath the blood-stiffened fall of his bangs.

Barnes in the next bed, next to Dean.

Dean blinks. Slurs, “‘s it really him?”

The captain starts at his voice. He stands, and comes immediately to Dean’s bedside, and grips the rails of his bed. Dean squints at him, eyelids heavy.

"Tried…silver…" Dean hears himself say. Is already starting to fade. "Didn’t…"

He hears a shaky, wet breath. Feels something warm find his hand and squeeze around it, engulfing him like warm blankets, or the dark that he slides back into.

 

He dreams of a hand on his ankle. Holding him as he’s dipped in a dead river, the only warmth in bone-deep cold.

 

_Screaming and twisting and the beeps of monitors. The wails of machines and the terse voices of nurses._

_You’re here. You’re here. Nobody's leaving._

_Do you hear me, Dean?_

_Nobody's leaving._

 

\- -

 

He sits on the edge of the bed and waits for the nurse to come in with his discharge papers. He’s got his bag with his wound care instructions, and the extra gauze and leftover antibiotic ointment for cleaning the place where the chest tube went in, and the incentive spirometer they want him to keep using until he gets another chest X-ray to make sure the infection’s cleared. They say there’s no fluid in his lungs anymore and the pneumonia’s mostly gone, but his chest still feels tight and heavy.

He thinks maybe that feeling is never going to go away.

There’s a knock on his door. He looks up from his boots as it opens. It’s not the nurse. It’s Wilson.

He stands in the doorway for a minute, just looking at Dean. Then he shuts the door behind him and comes to lean against the bed, arms crossed. “Takin’ off, huh?”

Dean lifts his spirometer to his mouth and inhales a deep, noisy breath.

"You’re gonna hurt Cap’s feelings, you know. He wasn’t kidding with that invitation to come stay with him and Barnes."

Dean pulls off the spirometer. “Which was really an invitation to come crash at your place, right?”

Wilson shrugs. “We all got shit, man. Nobody’s gonna judge you for the things you see when you sleep.”

Dean doesn’t say anything. Wilson finally sighs and heads for the door.

"Oh," he says, pausing and turning when he opens it. Tosses Dean something: his keys. "I got your car brought over. It’s on the fifth floor of the parking garage. Row A."

"Thanks."

"Don’t thank me till you see it," Wilson says, cocking an eyebrow, and vanishes before Dean can ask him what the fuck that means.

 

He has to pause once he gets to the fifth floor of the garage, because the elevator smelled like piss and he’s tired of the smell of piss, and five flights of stairs would’ve left him at least a little breathless on a good day. Eventually, he catches his breath again and rounds the corner. His baby gleams there, no other cars for five spaces on either side of her, and there's an assassin sitting on her hood.

Dean glares at Barnes as he comes closer. “Get off, man.”

Barnes doesn’t move. Dean contemplates, for a minute, pulling out a gun and shooting at him to get him off. The idea is tempting, because with any luck Barnes’ reflexes will have a gun in his hand and a bullet in Dean’s head before anyone can do anything about it.

Barnes slides off the hood. For a split second, Dean thinks he’s going to walk toward him, and his chest goes tight all over again.

But Barnes walks around the front of the car to open the passenger door and slide in.

Dean stands there for a minute. Then he creaks back into motion, hiking his bag over his shoulder and opening the driver’s door. He sees the gleam of blonde in the backseat and the Converse sneakers propped up on the opposite side.

Barnes takes an old air freshener hanging from the mirror and tosses it into the back seat like a grenade. Captain America startles up, in a hoodie and baseball cap like he’d been wearing all those years ago in Dean’s hospital room. He looks like he may have been dozing; he blinks stupidly at both of them for a minute. Then a balled-up straw wrapper hits hit between the eyes, and he says, reproachful, “ _Bucky_.”

An old Tic-Tac bounces off the same spot. Cap glares mightily.

"Why are you making a mess of my car," Dean says.

Bucky flips him the finger.

"Was already kind of a mess," Cap says. "You could carpet our whole apartment with all the burger wrappers you had back here—"

"Shut up, Captain," Bucky says.

"You shut up, Barnes," Cap says, looking delighted.

Dean feels slightly sick. He looks away, at the radio dial.

A Tic-Tac bounces off his eyebrow.

He looks at Bucky. Bucky looks back, and with obvious, telegraphed movements, buckles his seat belt. It gives a final-sounding  _click_.

Dean’s eyes slide up to the rearview mirror. Meet Captain America’s blue eyes looking back. Straight at him.

Dean swallows. Then he says, “Driver picks the music,” and sticks the key in the ignition.

 

 

 

 


End file.
